My neighbor across the street is putting in a new sidewalk and driveway, and the construction crews were making a ruckus, so I opened the office shades and looked out and ALL I COULD SEE WAS MY OAK AND MAPLE TREES. My neighbor on the side of me is putting in a back patio and had one of those little loaders running, and I looked out my back window to check and ALL I COULD SEE WAS MY WILLOW AND OAK TREES.
It made me so happy. My shut-in starter kit is already paying dividends.
Also, if you have a cpap machine, pls go check how long it has been since it was inspected. Since I got my new machine the other day, I have slept 10-12 hours a day each day. I did not realize how sleep deprived I had been for a while.
Math Guy
We planted a boatload of trees when we bought our current home 16 years ago. Now, we can sit on the patio in the shade at the end of the day and barely see the neighbors or the street. Our electricity consumption has also gone down significantly.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Still too close to the house, pal.
You knew that was coming.
zhena gogolia
Great news. We have ancient trees all around (I’m sitting beneath an enormous birch and looking at oaks and spruces and pines right now), but I keep thinking we need to plant a bunch of new ones. That to-do list is pretty long.
Roger Moore
@zhena gogolia:
What is it they say: the best time to plant a tree is a generation ago; the next best time is now.
Patricia Kayden
I live in an HOA, so I would probably have to get permission to plant any neighbor obscuring trees or vegetation. It took multiple submissions and months just to get a frigging fence for the backyard for my dogs. Arghhhh!
realbtl
I planted a lilac in front of my west facing home office/practice room that now is perfect. Shade and a place for the birds in the summer and bare branches to let in the weak winter sun here in MT.
Tim in SF
I LOVE MY CPAP!
CCL
@zhena gogolia: Plant now. We moved into a house with mature trees – and over these last three years, several have blown down and several have needed to be taken down (disease, lightening etc.). We’ve been planting trees for the past ten years, but we are going to have to up our game.
Percysowner
@Patricia Kayden: It isn’t always HOAs years ago my neighbor had to get our permission from us to put up a fence for his dog. The city refused to give him a permit without it. The weird thing was we were all on a converted farm. Our lot was the smallest at 2 acres. The rest were10-12 acres, but something about the zoning made them clear it with us. Zoning is weird.
Miss Bianca
“shut-in starter kit” FTW!
CaseyL
Trees are always better things to look at than construction equipment.
And better to look at than cars.
And definitely better to look at than other humans.
While I have been re-thinking my desire to move to the boonies after retirement, I do still yearn to live somewhere surrounded by not-city, not-traffic.
Van Buren
We planted bamboo along our fence line about a decade ago and after it completely filled in, our neighbor put in an outdoor shower, which she uses every morning if the weather is nice.
So now there’s no way I can cut down the bamboo without her thinking I’m a pervert.
West of the Rockies
People have to make noise, but I LOATHE sound pollution, especially construction and leaf blowers.
We lived for 9 hellish months across from a plot where a 150-unit apartment complex was being built. From about 6:30 to 5 Monday through Saturday it was tractors and their infernal backup alarms, hammering, radios, shouting, etc. We both ended up with short-term PTSD.
West of the Rockies
@Van Buren:
Relax… she already knows you’re a perv!
Dorothy A. Winsor
dm
Hoping Anne Laurie can find one of the — no doubt myriad — tweets that has Joe Biden responding to a question: “Are there Democrats who want to defund the police?” with “Are there Republicans who think we suck the blood out of babies?”
Gin & Tonic
Russia-1’s coverage of the Olympic opening ceremony apparently went to commercial just after Uganda’s team marched in. Who comes after Uganda? Ukraine.
Contractual obligations, you know.
cmorenc
@Roger Moore:
That’s why the current prevailing practice of big commercial housing developers to strip the entire project of every living thing down to bare earth is so infuriating – especially when there are such abundant examples of older suburban tract developments where they only took out the footprint necessary for the street and houses, leaving a plentiful canopy of mature trees. Part of the problem is that many of the tract developers operating in e.g. Raleigh, NC are e.g. Atlanta-based and have no real stake in the sustainable viability or livability of other towns in which they conduct their projects, caring instead only about how much profit they can extract, how quickly, with the minimal entanglement possible with local zoning and environmental regs – they won’t be affected by the traffic snarls and moonscapes they leave behind that will take 20 years to begin even partial adolescent-appearing green landscaping, except of course for the least ecologically valuable residue, lawns.
Our former residence of 15 years was in a suburban North Raleigh area developed late 60s-early 70s, with a big influx of IBM tech workers as one of the primary target buyers – and the neighborhood benefitted greatly from thoughtfully laid out streets and leaving a sufficient mature canopy of trees, and it was a real neighborhood where everybody knew everybody else. Our current higher-end (but not McMansion) residence of 15 years similarly sits in a neighborhood where developers only took out what was truly necessary. It’s very pleasant and walkable.
germy
Speaking of neighbors:
https://wnyt.com/news/profane-sign-president-joe-biden-fort-edward-washington-county/6180521/
West of the Rockies
@germy:
Maybe a bunch of neighbors should place their own signs up: Trump lost, dipshit. He’s a loser. You’re a loser. Fuck you.
cmorenc
Another huge potential neighbor annoyance are the sorts of folks who install numerous bright insecurity lights (mis-named “security” lights) with no cutoff fixtures whatever, casting harsh glare upon neighbor houses several lots in both directions, and especially directly across the street. If you want to light up your driveway and front porch, fine – but just as with generating loud noise at night keeping neighbors awake, you ought to be required to install cutoff fixtures limiting the glare to your own property. Alas, the police will respond to a loud party complaint, but not an intolerably bright light compaint.
mrmoshpotato
We can only assume that the willow ate the Bobcat! Be safe, John.
Betty Cracker
@dm: Here you go!
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia:
Oh my!
James E Powell
@germy:
It’s all Democrats’ fault for their failure to reach out to and respect that man.
hells littlest angel
I planted some “giant” arborvitae shortly after i moved here. There’s only one other house I can see from mine and I wanted to hide it from my view. It’s been three years. I have hopes for 2030.
Grover Gardner
I only learned about my CPAP recall from John’s previous post. It’s seven years old anyway, so I plan to purchase a new one. I’m probably not getting good performance from the old one either. So thank you, John, for the heads-up!
James E Powell
@Betty Cracker:
That was the equivalent of saying FU!
All Democrats take note & follow your president’s example.
gene108
John, you live a life of too much warmth, friendship, and adventure to ever be a shut-in.
Chacal Charles Caltrop
Just flew to a pandemic- delayed family wedding & JetBlue has completely, and I mean completely, lost the bag they required me to check, which of course contained the outfit I was planning to wear. As in bagcheck screen says “mishandled at source’ and “tracking unavailable.”
any suggestions as to how to get them to find my bag from the hive mind?
mrmoshpotato
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I wonder how many Tennessee parents called up wanting to jam needles into the GTrashP’s eyeballs.
Geo Wilcox
When we bought our land there was about 4 trees on it not including the older growth around the creek at the back end of our 22.6 acres. Over the years we have planted well over 15000 trees and have thrown the seeds (walnuts, oaks) to encourage volunteers.
We used to be able to see the road leading to our driveway and 4 neighbor’s homes. Not now. We planted conifers along the road as a noise and dust barrier but it also serves as a screen to the houses on the hill. INI the font year we have a pond that is enclosed by trees and shrubs to the birds that visit (NOT GEESE) are happily screened from the driveway traffic.
Gin & Tonic
@hells littlest angel: Hope there are no deer. They LOVE Arborvitae.
mrmoshpotato
@Van Buren:
Well, ok then!
Betty Cracker
@Chacal Charles Caltrop: No advice, but good lord, that’s maddening. I hope they find your bag!
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I can’t stop laughing.
I can’t believe that Biden actually said that, but it’s totally awesome that he did.
edit: I love the response from the so-called reporter: “I’m not sure.”
Roger Moore
@cmorenc:
I think some people actually want a bare lot when they move in, because it gives them the chance to plant exactly what they want rather than rely on what was there before. I remember people who had moved into one of the post-war suburbs describing how they actually wanted the chance to start in a place that was completely new rather than somewhere with history. That has no appeal to me. I also don’t understand people who see “architectural consistency” as a big advantage, as if having your house be an exact duplicate of the one next door is a necessity for a nice neighborhood.
WaterGirl
@Chacal Charles Caltrop: Totally maddening.
I’m sorry to say this, but it’s time for you to go shopping for something to wear to the wedding.
mrmoshpotato
The Rude Pundit is responding to Megan McArglebargle within.
Ohio Mom
Chacal:
No ideas re: the airline and your lost baggage, just that you might want to go dress shopping five minutes ago.
Betty Cracker:
Thank you for that video clip — it is very satisfying. What stops it from complete perfection is the anonymity of the reporter. I’d like to know who that turkey is.
Roger Moore
@Chacal Charles Caltrop:
If they can’t find it, they can’t find it. Nothing you can do will change that. Your best hope now is to figure out how you’re going to deal with not having your bag and what to do if they never find it.
Another Scott
@Chacal Charles Caltrop: No specific advice, but make sure you have a claim filed (sounds like you do), and check the contract.
DOT.gov:
A colleague and I were attending a conference in Cancun and his bags were lost. He ended up having to buy polo shirts at the gift shop to have a change of clothes. :-/ His bags did show up after 3-4 days…
Can you borrow anything appropriate? Is there someplace nearby where you can shop?
(I would hope that the airline would have to compensate you in actual cash money for the delay.)
HTH a little. Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
StringOnAStick
@Chacal Charles Caltrop: When is the wedding? You might be able to force them to buy you replacement wedding clothes but it will be a fight. Any formal wear rental places nearby?
United lost our bags going on a “heli to the lodge” trip, so once the heli left the pad, another one wasn’t coming for a week. We explained that, ran to the Canadian version of REI and bought enough to get by. Fortunately they didn’t lose our skis and we had our boots and avalanche equipment in our backpacks that we used as carry on.
Ohio Mom
Chacal:
If by some chance your luggage is located, you can return your new outfit. Keep the tags on until the last moment.
stinger
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Oh, yet more good news! Thanks for finding this, Dorothy.
Gravenstone
@Gin & Tonic: Heh, the two remaining arbovitae on my property (have had seven planted next to the house by the original owner removed over the years) got stripped from ground level to about 5′ up this past winter by deer. Looks like the four I can see in yard of the neighbor behind me suffered the same fate. It’s quite a striking image.
mrmoshpotato
@StringOnAStick: RE’Eh?
gvg
@Chacal Charles Caltrop: It happened to me about 30 years ago. I had to buy a new outfit. also buy regular things to wear and borrowed some from relatives. The most difficult item was shoes.
The rest of the family bags arrived fine, just mine was lost even though we all checked in together. Bag turned up about a week after the wedding, and was shipped and delivered to me back home.I don’t recall now but I think it was sent to the wrong city.
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: An old office mate here in NoVA was like that. The lot he bought was flat and he had a few dump-trucks of dirt brought in to create a big mound on one side to plant things on. It turned into an absolutely fabulous yard.
When his son was little, he planted a redwood in the front yard and the kid tried to hop over it, creating a kink at the top. 30+ years later, that kink was still there, way, way at the top.
It was a beautiful tree, of course, but they have a lot of near-surface roots and there realistically isn’t enough room for one on a 1/4-1/3 acre lot. He eventually had to have it cut down because it was messing around with the slab foundation of his house. :-(
Cheers,
Scott.
StringOnAStick
@Roger Moore: Considering that many of not most people aren’t that skilled at landscape design, and it leads to some unfortunate results, like 30 years later having the living room window and part of the garage door blocked by a blue spruce (our old neighbourhood had this, they could only park one car in the garage because of it). Landscape design is a big hobby of mine and I’ve worked under a xeriscape pro, and sometimes I just shake my head at what people put in their yards.
I had been trying to help a neighbor who wants to do “something” with their yard, but she and husband can’t agree. They pay no attention to a plant’s sun or shade requirements and for example just slap lavender into the deep shade under their dense pines. They want a solid wall of veg for privacy on a tiny lot; what they want and what their tiny lot has room for can’t be reconciled so I hear a lot of bickering. Unfortunate.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@gvg: thks. I just hope it shows up eventually, it has my most comfortable heels (Teva wedge sandals that aren’t made anymore), a Tory Burch dress that fits me perfectly, & a set of hand embroidered cocktail napkins that were supposed to be a nice little wedding gift fir a couple that specified “no gifts.” It’s just a story to laugh about if it shows up eventually but I’m going to really really angry if it’s gone forever
Ohio Mom
One of our bags got lost once, long ago.
Eventually we got a call that it had been located and could be picked up at the Terminal’s Found Luggage Office. Which was in a corner behind the luggage carousels.
When we got there, the office was locked. In front of it were masses of “found” luggage. Completely unattended. We found our suitcase and left.
I don’t remember any other details, like which airline or airport or how long it took the airline to find our bag. Just that I was glad nobody else walked off with our stuff. Maybe post-9/11 they keep better tabs on things?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: @WaterGirl: I.. I… I….
has the stammering idiot (h/t Rickles) or her home outlet been ID’d?
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’ve been watching it over and over again.
trnc
Actually, the GOP was banking on the urban areas continuing to get hit harder because that’s what happened early on.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Joe!
Yup, too enfeebled to be presidenting.
Loved the “I-I’m not sure.”
Chacal Charles Caltrop
@Ohio Mom: I have to say that I now believe I have found a perfect way to get a bomb into an airport, if not necessarily on a plane: check it in with JetBlue. It disappears absolutely, even if tagged &labeled.
I’m going to include that detail in the lawsuit I file against them.
While I was trying to get my bag out of the destination luggage attendant, there was an announcement that if anyone noticed anything suspicious about luggage to call 911. So I asked the attendant whether I could call 911 about the suspicious circumstances of the inexplicable disappearance of my bag. She said that it was not an appropriate matter for 911.
zhena gogolia
@Chacal Charles Caltrop:
Be careful with jokes like that. Airlines and TSA don’t find them funny.
trollhattan
Will add to Cole’s post that our backyard is shaded much of the day now (it’s to the south of the house) because of the…wait for it…willow (Salix matsudana ‘Tortusa’) I planted there maybe 15 years ago.
But, while it began as a cutting sourced from from a tree in Napa, it has achieved probably 5x the size of its parent and has grown into the utility lines and drinks thirstily from the sewer main. The bloody thing is a menace and I’m only saved by the distance from the house. “Prefers well-drained soil” seems fanciful, because this one is planted in clay atop a couple feet of hardpan at about 4′ bgs. Willow don’t care. Willow don’t give a shit. Willow is the honey badger of trees.
trollhattan
This fuckin’ guy.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: Biden is much more badass than many Ds expected. My respect for him grows.
mrmoshpotato
@trnc: It can be (and is) both.
Early 2020, the Trump trash were hoping COVID would just ravage urban (read blue politically, black and brown racially) areas.
Now they want their Trump trash asses to be saved by dirty libruuls from a virus that apparently is no longer a hoax to them.
mrmoshpotato
@Chacal Charles Caltrop:
Are you saying that the wedding outfit you packed was da bomb?
Don’t throw that perfectly good tomato. i’ll see myself out.
smith
@trollhattan: Well, that was quick. Do you think they had a one-day sanity event just to produce clips they can play when their anti-vax propaganda comes back to bite them?
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: That fuckin’ guy straight into the Sun.
mrmoshpotato
@smith: They could go the Bill O’32-million-dollars-of-sexual-harassment route and came they aren’t the ones saying all this bullshit! It’s their shows that are!
Yes, Bill actually went this route in the O’Reiley Factor days. “I’m not saying it. It’s The Factor.”
Ruckus
@Chacal Charles Caltrop:
I used to fly for my job, over 30 weeks a year when I worked in pro sports. Lost a bag once in 11 yrs. Had my work uniforms in it of course so that was a problem. But the airline found the bag, and as I had filed a lost bag claim they were able to call me and deliver the bag within 24 hrs. Just. Now I carried a toothbrush and toothpaste in my carry on just for insurance so it wasn’t horrible.
My point is, you did file a claim, or whatever the airline requires didn’t you? My bag was put on the wrong plane, went to the wrong city…… Your’s likely had the same/similar fate.
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:
FSM bless Uncle Joe Biden — that was fuckin’ brilliant~!!~ And the dipshit reporter says “I – I’m not sure… ” and repeats her stupid question oozing an attack on the Democratic Party.
As if President Biden is responsible for every dipstick out there who registers as a Democratic voter…
JustRuss
Show-off!
JustRuss
That’s not a warning, it’s blistering condemnation.
NotMax
@Chacal Charles Caltrop
Might want to give this a quick scan. (It’s a few years old, so some policies may have changed since.) And be sure to save receipts for any replacement items (including clothes) you purchase for immediate use.
J R in WV
My dad’s luggage once flew to Charleston SC instead of Charleston WV… it wandered home eventually. Long after his trip was over, of course.
I always carry a couple of pairs of clean under-ware, tee shirts, my meds, etc, in my carry-on along with the laptop, passport, etc. I can manage for a couple of days and be comfortable, tho not prepared for wedding party photos.
Chacal Charles Caltrop
@NotMax: thks!
@Ruckus: yes – filed a claim immediately as it didn’t turn up.
Also, because the less-than-competent luggage agent at SFO kept wandering away from her terminal to deal with personal phone calls about selling a house, I got to photograph screenshots of her terminal. That how I know it was first “accepted” and then next entry was “mishandled.” I saw my poor bag tagged for SFO (although I should’ve photographed it) so I’m guessing it never left NYC.
The idiot clerk didn’t dare call the police, I would’ve filed a claim for theft with them if she had and I told her so.
Thanks everyone for the suggestions!
NotMax
@J R in WV
1974. With a backpack, flew to Europe, flew while in Europe, flew back from Europe – including multiple plane changes en route – and then grabbed a puddle jumper from NYC to Scranton on Monmouth Airlines.
That last hop is the one that lost my luggage. Airline handed me a sheet of paper with line drawings, asking me to mark the one which resembled my luggage. Nothing on it looked like anything anyone anywhere at any time carried. Triangles, cones, dodecahedrons – may even have been a drawing of a Klein bottle – nothing shaped close to what is used on planet Earth.
raven
Run Herschel Run!!!
MelissaM
How can you Kravitz with vegetation in the way?? (That’s Gladys Kravitz from Bewitched, not Lenny Kravitz.)
dm
@Betty Cracker: Thanks! That clip may be front-page worthy, if the on-line world isn’t already saturated with it.
Uncle Cosmo
@cmorenc: Funny you should mention it: One of my high-school classmates, with whom I’ve recently reconnected after >40 years[1], delivered in her last e-mail a righteous high-dudgeoned rant about neighbors with dazzling “security lights” who prevented her from enjoying what would otherwise have been a deeply-dark night sky in her part of South Pennsyltucky. I was astounded, supportive and, well, charmed[2] – inasmuch as I’d nearly become an astronomer those decades ago, and she’d had no such aspirations.
[1] TBH I’d been hopelessly infatuated with her, who though so far above my aspirational level at the time had been unfailingly considerate and gentle with my jumbled emotions way back when…
[2] See [1]. Over the years I have made many mistakes in those upon whom I settled my affections – but not, it seems, that time! ;^D
trollhattan
Things one really, really doesn’t want to read.
That last line has gasted my flabber.
trollhattan
@MelissaM:
Drone technology can overcome many vegetation challenges.
Uncle Cosmo
Back in June 1988, on The Business Trip From Hell, the Corporation required that I take a newfangled “laptop” thingie[1] as a carryon to a meeting with the USAF customer in Idaho[2]. It was bulky enough that I had room for nothing else.
After a traffic jam on the way to BWI, and the delay when Security demanded that I fire that mother up [2] (which naturally I’d never done before) before they’d let me through, I missed my flight through Chicago, and was rebooked several hours later to Boise via SFO. I arrived to discover that my checked bag – with all my clothes and toiletries – had not.
You lost my bag! I screamed.
It’s not lost, they replied, we know exactly where it is. [3]
SO WHAT??!?! IT’S NOT HERE! I then calmed down enough to explain that I had a meeting in the morning on a $300,000,000 Federal contract and I damn well needed my clothes!
Go to the WalMart and buy something, we’ll reimburse you.
WHAT???? IT’S EIGHT-THIRTY IN BOISE IDAHO [4] AND I’LL BE LUCKY TO FIND THE ON-RAMP TO I-84 EAST!! HOW THE HELL AM I GOING TO FIND THE WALMART BEFORE IT CLOSES??
They promised to get me my bag by 3 PM (NOT GOOD ENOUGH!), then by noon (STILL NOT GOOD ENOUGH!), then by 8 AM.[5]
(There’s more, there’s much, much more – but I’ll spare yinz. Suffice it to say that on every flight now I always carry on Rx, toiletries, 3 changes of underwhere ;^D – and a much lighter and more serviceable laptop! All of which the goddamned gate-checkers can pry from my hands at the risk of losing a limb…)
[1] A Data General One IIRC. Heavy as a cinderblock and about as useless – I don’t think I fired it up once. The only reason for bringing it was that the USAF’s consultant had used one at the last meeting and we had to have one of our own. I.e., corporate Schwanz-swinging.
[2] At Mountain Home AFB, 40 miles east on I-84. The only rental car left was a fire-engine-red Toyota Celica that I nearly rode off a cliff in the Boise National Forest returning on US 20 from a side trip to Hemingway’s grave in Ketchum 3 days later. Therein hangs its own tale, but I’ll spare you…
[3] I give the luggage attendant credit for not grinning. Otherwise his family might now be minus a father and I might still be in an Idaho lockup.
[4] Note classical allusion. (SWIDT? :^D)
[5] It arrived at 3 PM. As I walked into the meeting, wearing what I’d worn on the flight the day before, I cautioned the attendees to stay well upwind of me.
Zinsky
I have highly irregular sleep habits – 5 to 6 hours tops in a night and little or no REM sleep. CPAP doesn’t help – makes me sleep worse. The sleep lab that evaluated me said I had one of the lowest REM activity they had ever seen. Just lucky, I guess…
Elizabelle
@Chacal Charles Caltrop: Are you flying back into the same airport?
In addition to filing a claim, buying new stuff, and calling JetBlue’s lost luggage, there is a chance your bag is still in NYC. Maybe it will show up, especially once you share the photos you took. Hound them as much as you have time (tell them there are items of sentimental value within, in the event that makes one of them take notice), and for sure go hang out with them once you return. I suspect you were going to do all of this, already.
Even though it did not make the system, there’s a chance the bag shows up, either at the origin or destination, and perhaps JetBlue has contracted with some company to deliver delayed luggage. I got all my luggage back from Southwest when they switched me to another flight at the last minute. There are businesses that specialize in late luggage delivery.
Bad on the JetBlue agent for doing such a crap job.
Good luck, and let us know what (if anything) happens.
Hoping someone did not get into your bag because of the Tory Burch dress.
Steeplejack (phone)
@mrmoshpotato:
It is quintessential McAardle that her Twitter profile pic shows her wearing one of those masks with vents that allow her breath (and potential virus particles) to be freely dispersed to everyone around her.
nclurker
@CaseyL: move out of the city.
you’ll be glad you did.i bailed out years ago.
surrounded by trees,birds and animals.
you know how many cars drove past my house today.
zero.
while typing this ,had to go chase a woodpecker away
from the carpenter bee larvae under my roof.
happens every summer about this time.
it is a better way of living.
cheers all
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Elizabelle: yeah, but the Tory Burch dress & matching shoes are the most expensive things for the airline to replace…
WayneL140
John, when I had my sleep study done, I stopped breathing 114 times an hour, topping my dad, who quit breathing 104 times an hour. A CPAP machine is a life saver.